Traditional Native American Raw Material Sources in the Yellowstone Region

Summary

Obsidian and other lithic sources in the Yellowstone region of Wyoming and nearby Montana or Idaho were used up until contact with Euroamericans and information from oral traditions, ethnohistory, ethnoarchaeology, and toponymy provide data on the significance of certain raw material choices made by Native Americans such as the local Shoshone. Why did chipped stone weapons and tools persist even after new metal technologies were introduced? How did the choices of raw materials signal Native resistance to colonizing and settlement challenges posed by newcomers to the region? In what ways did the lithic raw material sources contribute to the formation of a set of quarry landscapes with symbolic associations meaningful within a broader cosmological worldview or social milieu? Were extraction locales perceived to have their own sacred power, potentially becoming traditional cultural properties? These themes are addressed from the standpoint of an anthropology of technology and a landscape archaeology approach.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Traditional Knowledge and Lithic Resources   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15383